Panel 1 is labeled “START HERE,” and shows a fashionable hipster man talking on a cell phone. He has a Van Dyke beard.
VAN DYKE: Come to the city and stay with me for the conference! You’ll meet important people!

An arrow labeled “If you’re a girl go this way” leads to a panel showing a young woman on the phone thinking “Should I go? I barely know this guy.” There are two paths leading from this panel: “YES, GO” and “DON’T GO.”

“DON’T GO” leads to a panel marked THE END, where we see an IMPORTANT PERSON IN A SUIT AND TIE speaking to VAN DYKE.
IMPORTANT PERSON: Whatever happened to her? I thought she was talented.
VAN DYKE: I tried helping her, but she’s SO standoffish.
THE END!

“YES, GO!” leads to a panel of the young woman and Van Dyke in a bedroom. He is grabbing her and she’s trying to fend him off.
VAN DYKE: Aw, c’mon, don’t tease!
WOMAN: Get OFF!
There are two routes out of this panel: “STAY IN HIS APARTMENT” and “FLEE HIS APARTMENT.” “STAY IN HIS APARTMENT” leads to a black panel labeled “HE RAPES YOU.” “FLEE HIS APARTMENT” leads to a panel of the young woman sitting on a sidewalk, shivering, in the dark, labeled “you’re broke on the streets of a strange city.” Whichever path you choose, they both lead to…

A panel marked “YOU GET BLAMED.” Fingers point at the young woman.
FINGER 1: She must have wanted it!
FINGER 2: What did she expect to happen?

The “YOU GET BLAMED” panel leads to an arrow marked “TIME OFF TO HEAL,” which in turn leads back to the THE END panel.

Going all the way back to the “START HERE” panel, there’s one more route in this flow chart. From “START HERE” (“Come to the city and stay with me for the conference! You’ll meet important people!”) choose “IF YOU’RE A BOY, GO THIS WAY.” A young man on the phone says “Thanks! I’d love to go!” We then see him at a party in the city, with lots of networking going on; the IMPORTANT PERSON is saying to him, “we should collaborate.” An arrow marked “YEARS LATER” leads to a panel of the now less young man, clearly now an important person himself, giving a speech at a podium.

YOUNG MAN: I never benefited from sexism… I just worked harder than my rivals!

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Further update: And a third try at finding the right punchline to this cartoon! (Scroll down for the first two attempts).

The second try:

Sometimes I don’t get cartoons right the first time. After I’d posted this one online, David Feldman emailed me suggesting that the punchline would be better if it focused more on past acts than on future plans. He was right, and after a bit of emailing back and forth, we came up with a new punchline.

For those of you who are interested, here’s the cartoon with the original punchline:

If you purchase this cartoon for reprint, be sure to let me know which punchline you prefer. 🙂

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON
The cartoon shows two young men chatting. The man on the left is Asian and punky – he has his hair shaved into a mohawk, a nose ring and an earlobe plug, and tattoos. The man on the right is probably white and has a van dyke beard and a shaved head, and is wearing a black vest over a turtleneck shirt. There are six panels.

Panel 1
BEARDY: In the old days, rape was when a thug jumped out of bushes, not this “date rape” and “affirmative consent” nonsense!

Panel 2
BEARDY: If we define “rape” so broadly, how can I know I’m not “raping” a girl I’m hooking up with?

Panel 3
PUNKY: It’s really not hard! If she acts like she wants sex, by yanking your pants down or saying “fuck me now” – if she’s going for it just as much as you are – then you’re golden!

Panel 4
PUNKY: But if she’s so drunk that she can’t walk straight or talk clearly, then she might be too drunk to know what’s going on, so don’t fuck her. Or him, for that matter.

Panel 5
PUNKY: And if she passively “gives in” to sex, check that things are cool before going any further. Why is that so hard?
BEARDY: Because!

Panel 6
PUNKY: Because what?
BEARDY: Because she might say no!

Alternate punchline:

BEARDY: Because it’s impossible that anything I’ve done was rape!

And the original punchline:

BEARDY: Because then I might not get to fuck her!

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The cartoon depicts a young mother and her toddler, in a small and crappy-looking room. The woman is bent double under a load of boxes, trunks and bags, each of which is labeled: Unemployment, Lack of Education, Illness, Bigotry, Exhaustion, Low Wages, Childcare, Looking Poor, and Crime.

Also in the room is a young white guy, wearing a necktie and suspenders, who is grinning happily and telling the woman “I know what’s holding you down! You should be married!”

In a little “epilog” panel at the bottom of the cartoon, the guy continues “…Unless you’re gay.”

Panel 3
Both women have become a bit annoyed with the other.
BLACK DRESS: No! But when I do my family budget, I can’t spend more than I earn.
SNEAKERS: Then how will anyone in your family ever own a home? Or go to college?

Panel 4
BLACK DRESS: My point is, the government has to cut back! Starting with social security!
SNEAKERS (horrified): Your family saves money by robbing Grandma?

What happens if these underlying sources are copyrighted? As Judge Richard Posner pointed out, “Romeo and Juliet itself would have infringed Arthur Brooke’s The Tragicall Historye of Romeo and Juliet… which in turn would have infringed several earlier Romeo and Juliets, all of which probably would have infringed Ovid’s story of Pyramus and Thisbe.” You get the point — without a rich public domain, much of literature would be illegal.

Panel 1
Shakespeare, at a writing table, feathery quill in hand, holding up what he has just written to read it aloud.
SHAKESPEARE: “But soft! What light through yon window breaks? It is a lightning bug, and Juliet is the bug’s ass.”

Panel 3
Shakespeare rises and speaks sharply to the Federal Agent who has just walked in. The Federal Agent wears a 20th century suit and dark glasses, and displays a badge.
SHAKESPEARE: SIR! What brings you to my chamber?
FED: This PLAY you wrote, “Romeo and Juliet.”

Panel 4
FED: You STOLE it from Arthur Brooke’s “The Tragical Historye of Romeus and Juliet!”

Panel 5
Shakespeare is using the ol’ “explaining hands” gesture, the Fed points and yells.
SHAKESPEARE: The SEED was Brooke’s, but under my care it has flourished into a DIFFERENT tree-
FED: So you ADMIT it!

Panel 6
The Fed whips off his dark glasses for a panel. He looks so mad that he might eat them.
FED: Answer THIS, smart guy: Why should BROOKE bother writing NEW WORK when second-raters like YOU swipe his stuff?

Panel 7
Shakespeare is beginning to get pissed.
SHAKESPEARE: But sir! Poor Brooke lies beneath the sod. My simple play cannot disturb him now. The ONLY work being stifled is mine own!

Panel 9
SHAKESPEARE: But Brooke’s OWN idea germinated with Matteo Bandello! We are ALL leaves from the same branch, sir! That’s how creativity works!

Panel 10
The FED, who is quite a bit larger than Shakespeare, grabs Shakespeare and shakes him back and forth.
FED: No, that’s how STEALING works! Brooke’s only been dead for THIRTY YEARS. The worms have barely finished digesting!

Panel 11
Shakespeare’s babbling is interrupted when the stern-faced Fed yanks him around to put handcuffs on him.
SHAKESPEARE: But this is MADNESS! Do we not value freedom of THOUGHT? Are IDEAS not the currency of culture? The veritable grist of progress for the social mill? Tell me sir– OW!

Panel 12
Shakespeare, dressed in jailbird’s stripes, sits in a prison cell, loking a bit wistful or confused.
CAPTION: And so Creativity was Saved from a Plagiarist Lout.

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(Each of the first nine panels shows a black-haired woman walking in a public place at different times and in different outfits. In each outfit, a different stranger on the street is making a comment to her. She looks very unhappy with the comments. Panel 1 starts showing her from fairly far away, but each panel gets closer up on her face until panel 9.)

Panel 1
Man in doorway: Damn, beautiful!

Panel 2 (woman is waiting at bus stop)
Guy sitting on stoop: You got a number?

Panel 7 (Close up on woman’s almost wincing face).
Off-panel voice: Just stop and talk. I just want to talk to you.

Panel 8 (Closer up on her face, which is turned away from the viewer.)
Off-panel voice: What’s your name? C’mon, tell me your

Panel 9 (Very far shot of woman, walking hunched over with her hands in her jacket pockets).
Off-panel voice: I’d fuck the SHIT out of that.

Panel 10 (Woman at home, in her bedroom. A cheerful man in the background, wearing pajamas and sitting on a bed, talks to her; she has her back to him and looks miserable.)
Man: If women on the street said I look nice, it’d make my day!

Caption: TOO MUCH HEINLEIN
Black guy making big arm gestures: lazarus long said that all men are created UNEQUAL. it’s not MY fault i’m SMARTER than poor people!

Caption: THE ISLAND
Older man in colorful vest and button-up shirt, holding a piece of paper in one hand. An arrow caption pointed at the piece of paper says “social security check.” Two more arrow captions, pointed at the man, say “Public school grad” and “drives on public roads.”
Man: no one ever gave ME anything! so don’t force ME to give to others!

Caption: CREEPY
Man in shadows, wearing sunglasses: why should i have to go all the way to THAILAND to have sex with a child prostitute?

Caption: SELECTIVELY FRUGAL
Man with worry lines on forehead: the deficit is too HIGH to AFFORD anything for the poor! OR the environment! …but don’t let that stand in the way of my tax cut.

Caption: NEPOTIST
as the latest of a LONG line of wealthy pundits, i KNOW success is created by MERIT!

Caption: THE APOSTLE
Exalted guy with hands together as if praying: we just need to TRUST that the MAGIC of the MARKET will make everything work out! that’s why it’s MAGIC!

Caption: ATLAS
Manically grinning man with messy hair, sitting with his hands on his computer keyboard: someday me and my friends will QUIT updating our blogs and THE ECONOMY WILL COLLAPSE!

Caption: CONSISTENT
Intense, woodpecker-looking man: stocks were UP, so i said: CUT TAXES! then stocks went down, so i said: CUT TAXES! i just stubbed my toe! CUT TAXES!

Caption: THE HISTORIAN
Man with big glasses and big grin, reading book: I’ve read summaries of the federalist papers MANY times, so I KNOW the framers share my views about EVERYTHING!

Caption: GUNNER JOE
Man holding two handguns up: there are only TWO kinds of people in the world: GUN OWNERS and SHEEP! and sheep aren’t really people.

Caption: BIZARRELY HYPOCRITICAL
Man with arms crossed: government should stay OUT of our personal lives! except for women’s uteruses, where government BELONGS!

Caption: BRIEFLY TEMPTING
Balding man in hoodie: the war on drugs is RIDICULOUS! end police abuse! #%^@! the war!

Caption: WHITEY
Balding man in black vest and black tie: i DO think it’s a TERRIBLE affront to liberty if restaurants HAVE to serve blacks! how is THAT racist?

Caption: MISSIONARY
Man holding out copy of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged,” with wide eyes and bags under his eyes:YOU MUST READ THIS!

Caption: CAVEAT EMPTOR
Cheerful man about to eat hot dog: no need for a nanny state! i can test my OWN food for botulism!

Caption: STONED
Words coming up from somewhere below the bottom of the panel: hee hee hee

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PANELS 1 & 2. The Federal Reserve, depicted as a professorial-looking man (bow tie, pipe), cheerily talking to a balding, working-class looking dude in an undershirt. Working class dude is listening without much expression.
FEDERAL RESERVE: hi! i’m the federal reserve! i practically run the economy! i COULD use my powers to lower unemployment, but INVESTORS don’t want that. in fact, whenever unemployment gets LOW, i make it go UP. because that’s what wall street wants. i purposely create unemployment!PANELS 3 & 4 The Federal Reserve is gone, and in his place is The Banking Industry, depicted as a balding man in a vest, tie and jacket, and with dollar bills floating in the air around him. Banking Industry is even more cheerful than Federal Reserve was. Working class dude continues listening expressionlessly.
BANKING INDUSTRY: hey there! I’m the banking industry. i pack the government with my friends, and gamble wildly until i destroy the entire economy. after that, i’ll get bailed out with YOUR tax dollars. then i’ll foreclose on the horribly inequitable mortgage i sold you and take your home!PANEL 5: Man wearing Uncle Sam hat has now replaced Banking Industry. Uncle Sam waves cheerily. Working Class Dude continues to listen expressionlessly.
UNCLE SAM: greetings! i’m your goverment!PANEL 6: Uncle Sam leans in and whispers. Working Class Dude continues to listen expressionlessly.
UNCLE SAM: i make little GESTURES towards reform, but in the end i always take the banks’ side! because they totally OWN me!PANELS 7 & 8: An Immigrant Dude replaces Uncle Sam, and speaks cheerfully. Immigrant Dude looks exactly like Working Class Dude, except his skin is a little darker. Working Class Dude continues to listen expressionlessly.
IMMIGRANT DUDE: hello! i’m an immigrant. i just want to work hard to feed my family.PANEL 9: Working Class Dude yells very loudly and angrily; Immigrant Dude winces back in surprise.
WORKING CLASS DUDE: QUIT RUINING MY LIFE, YOU SELFISH BASTARD!!